music: Phish- 11/8/96, Champaign, IL
Last night I went to a party for DJ 1ey, who is about to depart for South America for a good amount of time (This, of course, deserves its own entry which will be made some time soon). A most excellent group of friends were gathered there and shared in what was at its core a simple celebration of friendship. It was a great time. I count myself lucky to know so many quality individuals and am glad to be able to spend time with them.
Due to getting in around 5:00 in the morning and drinking too much last night, I had a hard time enjoying the bright morning today. I laid in bed for a while, struggling with consciousness, and after deciding that today would not be a day of work until the sun went down, began to let my mind wander. I tried to piece together a very fragmented dream in which some orwellian trial had sentenced me to an excommunication of sorts for a minor scuffle with some woman I didn’t know. I tried to make a mental list of all the things I had to do for Monday’s classes but quickly gave up on that. And I started to figure out how I have come to know so many good people here.
An answer of sorts came when Trangy called in the early afternoon interrupting, incidently, my train of thought. The first words out of his mouth, even before “hello,” were “happy anniversary.” November eighth….Eleven-eight. Of course. It was seven years ago today that Vounk’s mom’s minivan carried him, myself, Scroto, Krudson, Garbage, and Rosario down to Champaign, IL for our first Phish show. It would be the start of a force that would push my world in new directions, a force that has everything to do with where I am today.
I first heard Phish at camp when I was 13 or so, but didn’t really put some mental effort into the band until the fall of 1995 and spring of 1996. I can remember sitting with Trangy during a fall inservice weekend at camp talking about Phish- trading tapes, going to shows. It was the beginning of a dialogue that approached academic levels of analysis of the band and their music, a preoccupation that bordered on obsession for the next 3-4 years (Trangy, now, is a graduate student of music and culture, earning a Master’s degree in such a conversation). We since had seen the band a handful of times, most recently with sign in tow for a weekend this past January. We have spent ungodly amounts of money, time, and thought on the band over the years, but all of this is perhaps best epitomized in our journey to the Florida Everglades and back to celebrate the coming of the Millenium with P.D., Scroto, 85,000 others, and Phish. It just so happened that one of those 85,000 others was a friend of Trangy’s from college, someone named Tim.
My brief introduction to Tim at Big Cypress was, by all appearances, a non-event. But we crossed paths again that fall at Deer Creek and Polaris, and he came down with Trangy to stay with me when Phish played two nights at Great Woods. So when it came time for me to find a place to live for the summer in Boston, I contacted Tim and shortly thereafter took up residence in a corner of the attic in a big yellow house in JP. By this time, Phish was on hiatus, but the music had spun me in a solid and definite direction. Enter the other members of Chowdahaus: G-Phatty, Peet, Doug, as well as the likes of OGD and DJ 1ey; so begins a social core that would make me feel home in Boston and friendships that survive to the moment.
I think the first time I hung out with the 1ey it involved frisbees and the Arboretum. The music slowly changed, but old patterns remained. We both went to a lot of concerts, and as a rule, the 1ey’s taste in music was something to be respected. Mostly on his recommendation, we hit up the local hotspots, reggae clubs in Brockton, festivals around the Northeast, as well as a little pub in Brookline called Matt Murphy’s. To say that I’ve met a few good people over the course of about two years’ worth of Tuesday nights at Murphy’s would be a collosal understatement. The music, then was expanding and changing, but it was indeed music that was in many ways guiding me along a path.
Concurrently, I began to put some work into Live Live, thereby placing myself in the middle of a thriving and vibrant community whose very foundations were music. Live Live was a constant in-and-out of new and interesting people and their friends, and as such I have Live Live to thank for gaining access to such an incredible collection of people. I count as my friends some of those whom I had the good fortune to interview for the show, friends including the good people from Lothrop and their extended circle (which, by no small coincidence, overlaps almost perfectly with the Murphy’s circles).
Things have recently come full circle in a matter of speaking as a friend I had made in college is now integrating into the Boston network. I shouldn’t be so surprised that C. and I met one night at a RISD party playing hand drums, later spinning off setlists and concert dates. Would it be any surprise that the band’s music we connected through was Phish? It almost goes without saying.
And as a wholly relevant side-trip on this path, I feel it necessary to recall a moment on the first day of my freshman year of college where a boisterous, bearded (hegemonic, malodorous…) classmate approached me with the greeting “ahh, I see you’re in uniform.” I was wearing a Phish t-shirt, as was he. We became friends and would end up living together for the next three years of college. After I introduced him to some of the guys living on my hall over dinner at the Ratty a core group of friends was formed that would, in many ways, define my college experience. That music, and specifically the music of Phish, was once again the driving force behind a significant portion of my life is not the least bit surprising.
So as I was lying in bed this afternoon letting my mind wander, I began to wrap my head around the significance of the rock concert I drove to Champaign, Illinois to see on 11/8/96. In many ways, the friends I have now and the general place in which I find myself can be traced back to this single event. I listen to Phish less and less as time goes on, but I will never put them aside entirely. Because of the role that their music has played in my life, I could never put them aside, even if I wanted to.
Grandma D. gave me a long-sleeved t-shirt a long time ago that she probably got as a promotional throw-in for buying a boombox or something like that. On the back of the t-shirt the phrase “Where The Music Takes You” is printed. It’s by all accounts a fairly ugly shirt, and I used to wear it when working with messy things or playing ultimate. But the phrase clicked some time not long ago (I think, quite honestly, that I was at a Phish show…), and I began to realize exactly where and to what extent the music has taken me. It’s been seven years to the day since I’ve seen my first Phish show, and to make the connection between me as a teenager driving from Milwaukee to Champaign in November of 1996 and me as a twentysomething celebrating so many wonderful friendships at a party in Somerville, MA in November of 2003 seems, now, perfectly natural. I will continue to move where the music takes me, and where there is music, I will follow.
Dripping in this strange design
None is yours and far less mine
Hold the wheel, read the sign
Keep the tires off the line
Just relax, you’re doing fine
Swimming in this real thing
I call life
But can I bring
a few companions
on this ride?